Born of the grain like all good riddles
I'm making stuffed peppers for the girls for dinner tonight. I don't really like stuffed peppers, but last week I happened to cook a pepper. One of my daughters, Theresa said she really liked the taste.
This might surprise you: I really like cooking and I'm good at it.
This shouldn't surprise you: I am a keeper of historic, family recipes and I like to recreate meals from my past (my mother's eggnog recipe will knock you flat on your ass).
So... stuffed peppers, that's what my dad's grandmother made. The rice was always intermixed with some annoying spice or vegetable matter... something I hated then but suspect I would enjoy now. But I figure my kids would hate these morsel interruptions, so I'm going with just peppers with plain white rice tonight.
The same grandparents also had this freezer out in the garage - can you remember the extravagance back then of someone actually owning two refrigerators! There they kept - among the layered stacks of rump roasts, chickens and loaves of bread ('cause you never knew when the next crash would hit) - a stash of Good Humor treats... Strawberry Shortcake Bars, Nutty-Buddies. My brother now has a similar freezer in his garage minus the goodies.
Recently I reconnected with a cousin who I hadn't seen in 30 years. This was on Facebook. He commented that the last time he remembered seeing me was at our grandparents. We were all flying kites he said. "Theresa's wake", I replied. "I'm not sure," he said, "If you say so."
Theresa's wake. I'm sure.
My grandparents lived in a farm house outside Stirling, Ontario. They had well-water. One day I'm going to go back to that house, knock on that door, and ask for a glass of water.
posted by John Allore @ 3/28/2008 05:04:00 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
John, I think of stuffed peppers, I think of Dewey Grub...it was on the menu practically every day, and it was the first time I ever encountered this concoction, so the memory starts there. I have since developed my own great recipe. Wanna trade?
Anon
p.s. Great posts earlier this week.
John
Next holiday season I want to try your egg-nog.
Dewer grub! Ha, ha... forgot that name. Though I didn't attend Champlain, for those not in the know, Dewhurst dining hall was where all the students ate lunch / sometimes dinner at the Lennoxville campus: hence "Dewey grub".
I actually REALLY don't like stuffed peppers, and now apparently, neither do my children. In fact they had a conversation with the grandmother on their mother's side last night who told them their great-grandmother used to make stuffed peppers and no one in their family liked them either.
I also spoke with my father last night, he recalls his mother's stuffed peppers (didn't like them). He also remembers the freezer full of drumstricks, and revealed that they were not - as I had assumed - there for us kids, but apparently for my grandfather who loved to sneak them (no doubt to wash down the horrible taste of his wife's stuffed peppers)
Conclusion: 4 generations: no one like stuffed peppers.
JA
Well John
Now you have another mystery to solve.
If no one in your family likes stuffed peppers, why did the family recipe survive 4 generations?
What do your kids have to say about it?
PS - I'd like to remind everyone that today is an anniversary day for Sharron Prior.
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